W&M alumna nominated to lead SEC

President Barack Obama announced today that he is nominating
Mary Jo White ’70 to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, an agency that
has an instrumental role in implementing Wall Street reform.

White is a former U.S. attorney widely known for her
expertise in prosecuting white-collar crimes. The first woman to hold the position of U.S. attorney in Manhattan,
White spent nearly a decade handling complex securities, financial fraud, drug
trafficking and international terrorists cases. One of her most notable cases was the conviction of Ramzi Yousef, the
mastermind of the 1994 World Trade Center bombing.

In 1970 White earned her undergraduate degree in psychology
from William & Mary. During her
junior year, she became a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest and
largest academic honor society. White
graduated from Columbia Law School in 1974.

In
2000, White led the criminal prosecution of more than 100 people — including
members of all five New York crime families — accused of strong-arming brokers
and manipulating prices of penny stocks. The action was called one of the
biggest crackdowns on securities fraud in U.S. history at the time.

When recognizing her role in the convictions of mob boss John Gotti in 2002 and terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center and two U.S. embassies in Africa, Obama told members of the press today during a ceremony in the State Dining Room: "You don't want to mess with Mary Jo."

White is
currently a partner at law firm Debevoise & Plimpton in New York. If the Senate confirms her nomination, she
would replace Elisse Walter who took over as chair in December when Mary
Schapiro announced she would be stepping down from the position.